


A Lack of Color

by messageredacted



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-14
Updated: 2012-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-29 13:18:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/messageredacted/pseuds/messageredacted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kinkmeme Prompt: <i>We all know where Sherlock's heart is, but is this where Moriarty thinks Sherlock's heart is? Maybe along with intellect, Moriarty shares the same kind of social blindness with Sherlock, and is thinking only in terms of intellect. So, Moriarty burning out Sherlock's heart = Moriarty slowly removing Sherlock's ability to solve cases. Through mis-information, false clues, slow irreversible poison that affects Sherlock's brain, reducing Sherlock's ability and reputation down to that of some guy who was great once but lost it all. Angst, anger, H/C, Sherlock's reaction to being pitied, John trying to care for him, so on.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lack of Color

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written on 20 August 2010.

It’s a rainy day the first time that Sherlock fails a case. The entire world is grey. Lestrade has an uncertain look on his face and for the second time he asks “But are you _sure_?”

And Sherlock can’t answer him.

It should have been a simple case. Two dead women, killed a week apart, both found stripped of all their possessions. The first woman had worked with the second’s husband, but how they both ended up dead was a mystery. Just a little digging had led to the discovery of evidence that the husband had been embezzling money from the company, and Sherlock had immediately decided that the co-worker had found the crime and then, with the help of the wife, had blackmailed the husband. The husband had figured out who was behind his blackmail and had murdered them both.

Except that there were other clues, things that Sherlock had no way of explaining. There was a woman’s footprint at the second murder that perfectly matched the first victim, except for the obvious reason that it couldn’t be her because she was lying in the morgue. There was physical evidence linking the husband to the second crime, when he had an airtight alibi, but no evidence linking him to the first, when he had no alibi at all. There were other things, small things, that no one but Sherlock would notice.

He has said many times that forming a theory that only matched _some_ of the evidence is something only the ignorant or the police would do, but there is _no way_ to explain all of the evidence he found. Absolutely none.

“We can arrest the husband,” Lestrade says. “But how do you explain his alibi?”

Sherlock looks around at the others waiting expectantly. They are waiting for him.

“I can’t,” he says. “Yet. Give me time.”

##

And he tries, he does. A few days later John finds him curled up asleep on the couch and makes him go to bed, threatening to handcuff him to the bed if he doesn’t take a nap, despite Sherlock’s protests. Sherlock does nap, but then he spends the next few days going over all the details of the case again, re-interviewing the suspects, casting his net wider. He keeps looking.

He _can’t find the answer._

Lestrade comes to him with a new case a week later, and they let this case drop for a while, although Sherlock refuses to give up entirely. He will win. He just needs more time.

This new case, again, looks promising. A teenage boy killed in his bedroom while his parents were asleep downstairs. Sherlock throws himself into it, determined not to fail. John’s spending more time with Sarah, too frustrated with Sherlock’s manic pacing and noxious experiments to stay in the flat for long. Sherlock researches, and thinks, and forgets to eat. His head hurts, but he doesn’t have time to stop and do something about it.

Lestrade comes by one afternoon and finds him sitting on the floor, obsessively going through papers, an untouched plate of sandwiches next to his elbow. “We have a suspect,” he says apologetically. Sherlock stares up at him.

“Who?”

Lestrade explains how Anderson—Anderson!—had discovered something strange in the victim’s computer and had followed it to an ex-girlfriend who had posted threatening messages a few months back.

But hadn’t Sherlock gone through that computer? He rubbed at his eyes and tried to picture it, but he couldn’t. Had he noticed that the victim had a computer? How could he not have?

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Lestrade says. Is that _pity_ in his voice?

“ _Not me_ ,” Sherlock snaps.

Lestrade sighs and nods. “Get some sleep. And eat something. Just… take a week off. We’ll take it from here.”

He leaves. Sherlock abandons his papers on the floor and finds John’s laptop by the couch, but John has changed the password and Sherlock can’t figure it out.

Maybe he does need sleep.

##

Lestrade doesn’t approach him on the next case. Sherlock reads about the murder in the paper.

“They’re bungling this one too,” he murmurs over the table to John.

John is eating breakfast. It’s one of the few times that he’s actually in the flat, and he’s only here because Sarah’s away visiting her mother for the weekend.

“That’s what they do,” John says. “Are you going to invite yourself along?”

Sherlock hesitates. Surely he can’t fail three cases in a row. “I think I might,” he replies.

John brings his dishes into the kitchen. “Smells like solvent in here,” he says. “Clean up after yourself, would you? I’m going out.”

##

Sherlock harasses Lestrade into giving him the files for the newest case, even though unsolved cases are starting to pile up in his flat. He pours through it, and when Lestrade finds the next body, he reluctantly invites Sherlock along.

“Ten minutes,” he says. “That’s all you get.”

Sherlock brings his flatmate along. This body is an older man, lying face down on a bed. Sherlock circles the body, observing it from every angle. He checks the fingernails, the hair, the mouth. He checks the pockets.

“Well?” Lestrade says when Sherlock stands back.

“Um,” Sherlock says. He looks at his flatmate. His name is on the tip of his tongue. “Um, you— What do you think?”

 _John._ It comes to him all at once. He feels dizzy. John leans in to the body and begins doing a thorough examination. Sherlock uses the distraction to slip out the door.

##

They don’t call him back, and Sherlock stops showing up. The world is entirely colorless without a case to follow, but he just can’t—he can’t do it. His brain is as thick and slow as honey. His violin sounds like it’s out of tune, no matter what he does. He can’t eat. He is using so many nicotine patches that his arm is red and blistered, so he switches to his other arm. He needs to think. He needs to remember…whatever if was he forgot.

##

His flatmate comes into the bathroom at three in the morning and finds Sherlock curled up around the toilet, still nauseated.

“Sherlock,” he murmurs. “You need to stop doing this.”

“Doing what?” Sherlock asks dully.

“You have to take care of yourself.” His flatmate squats down next to him and brushes Sherlock’s unwashed hair out of his eyes. “You’re filthy. You’re going to wash up and then you’re going to eat and go to bed. I’m not letting you continue like this.”

He turns on the water in the shower and helps Sherlock take off his dressing gown, although Sherlock’s limbs are slow to obey. His flatmate makes a sound of irritation when he sees the nicotine patches on Sherlock’s arm.

“This is part of the problem,” he says, peeling one off. He sticks it to the bathroom sink and then reaches for the next. “Look, you’ve got a rash…”

He trails off, frowning. He peels off the next patch, then lifts it to his nose and sniffs. “Solvent…” he murmurs.

He tugs the other two off Sherlock’s arm and sniffs them both, then pulls Sherlock to his feet. Sherlock sways drunkenly.

“Get this off,” his flatmate says, tugging at Sherlock’s shirt. Sherlock doesn’t help. His flatmate wrestles the shirt off him, then the rest of his clothes. He helps Sherlock step into the shower.

“Wash your arms,” his flatmate says, grabbing a bar of soap. “I’ll be right back.”

Sherlock rests his forehead against the wall and rubs the soap over his arms. His flatmate disappears, then comes back with the box of nicotine patches. He pulls a fresh one from the box and sniffs it.

“There’s something all over these,” he says. “Toluene. How long have you been…” He observes Sherlock again. “Jesus. I’m calling an ambulance.”

##

They flush his system in the A&E. They scan his brain for lesions and check his lungs for damage. “I wasn’t _sniffing paint_ ,” he tells them, but the doctors don’t really listen to him.

John says all of the nicotine patches were poisoned. It was absorbed through his skin. The more it absorbed, the more confused he got, and the more patches he would put on to counteract the dullness of his brain. For the first time, Sherlock thinks _someone did this to me._ There is only one man who would do this. One man who would try to hurt Sherlock by taking away his brain. If he tries hard enough, he can almost think of his name.

His appetite comes back after his second day in the hospital. He eats everything he can get his hands on. The nurses find it charming. It seems to make John happy, too. John spends all of his time at Sherlock’s side.

“If I’d spent more time at the flat, I would have noticed,” he says to Sherlock.

Music begins to sound like music again. They let Sherlock go home, and he is able to pull sweet sounds out of his violin. He plays for hours and John doesn’t give a word of complaint, probably out of guilt. Sherlock decides to milk as much out of that as he possibly can, and sends John on errands for the next several days just because he can.

Two weeks later, there’s a case in the paper. Sherlock reads the article through carefully. There is something suspicious about this case. He can see it. He thinks he might even be able to figure out what it is.

 _You know where to find me,_ he texts Lestrade.

 _It’s about time,_ Lestrade texts back.

Slowly, the color in the world comes back.


End file.
